Essential
by Tetris Remix
Summary: Several characters of Naruto reflect on what their lives might've been had certain people been different, or simply hadn't existed.
1. Sakura

**This thought occurred to me quite suddenly. Sakura isn't one of my favorite characters and neither is Sasuke. I don't know why I did this one-shot.** **Oh, well. Enjoy.**

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><p><em>It's strange, <em>one Sakura Haruno mused as she laid her once smooth and unscarred hands on the chest of another victim of the Fourth Shinobi War. Said victim sighed in relief as her green and cool chakra mended his particularly bloody wound.

_In a twisted way, I own everything to… Sasuke. _The more the pink-haired teen thought about it, the more it seemed true. _ If he hadn't left the village, if he hadn't been a power-obsessed, revenge-freak bastard, if he hadn't been __himself, well… _

The young medic shuddered as her patient started showering with praise and "thank you so much"s. He felt so much better, now that he didn't have a gaping wound on his stomach!

_I'd still be a stupid, boy-clothes-looks obsessed moron._

A little peeved by her unresponsiveness, her patient waved a hand in front of her absent emerald green eyes. Startled out her thoughts, the Konoha-nin looked around wildly before realizing there was no danger and that her patient was merely thanking her. She managed a strained smile before quite literally shoving the previously wounded man out of the medical tent and once again losing herself in the contemplation of the things that might've been.

_Let's see: if Sasuke hadn't spurred me with mean but true comments, I would still wash my hair six times a day, just for him, instead of cutting it and training to become stronger._

_If Sasuke hadn't been so obsessed with acquiring the power to kill his elder brother, he wouldn't have left and I wouldn't have found my reason, my drive as Tsunade called it, to become her apprentice._

_If I hadn't found the drive to become a medic-nin, I would've become a mediocre ninja, the unimportant, second-rate girl on the team of the Last Uchiha and the Kyuubi Jinchuriki. I wouldn't be "The Great Pink Haired Medic", the one who played a key part in the current war. I would be one of those who died on the battlefield, maybe one of the first. I would die with only one regret: that Sasuke hadn't noticed me._

_So, in a warped and twisted way, I owe my current life to Sasuke. It's a shame that Naruto will have to confront and most certainly have to kill him during the war. I can't believe I was in love with that bastard. Pitiful. Pitiful, but necessary._

And with that final thought, she passed her head through the flap of the medical tent and beckoned another wounded shinobi to come forwards so as to heal him.

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><p><em><strong>Let me know if like me, you think this is true. That without the betrayal of Sasuke and his general personlity, Sakura wouldn't be who she is, a bad ass medical genius. Review if you like! Don't flame, but give constructive criticism! Thank you.<br>**_


	2. Naruto

**Well , I wanted to do one for Naruto. So... Enjoy!**

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><p>A certain Uzumaki was bored to death. This certain Uzumaki had accomplished his life's dreams: he had become Hokage and and he had brought that stupid Teme back. Each had been the occasion of tremendous celebration, of course. But now that he had accomplished his goals, what was there left to do? Naruto Uzumaki found himself remembering his active shinobi days fondly, even longing to go back to the dangerous past. A past where he had played hero, saved Konoha from the Akatsuki, gone on exhilarating missions that made his blood course with adrenaline. A past where he had been the symbol of hope in those desperate times of the war against Madara. Excitement, adrenaline and battles were the daily routine of those days.<p>

It was a far cry from his actual schedule: filling out paperwork was by far the most mind-numbing thing known to man. It was even worse than going shopping with Ino and Sakura. They insisted a Hokage should have a _proper _wardrobe. But, man, they couldn't just _shut up _about that damn blouse. It was,as Shikamaru Nara would say, a drag.

He was glad Hinata wasn't like that. The shy little girl she'd been had blossomed into a beautiful woman, an excellent ninja and a brilliant mother of two. Of course, she still went on missions, so sometimes he'd take Nyoko and Shunichi to his work and give them toys while she was away, fighting missing-nins. He hated assigning her dangerous missions, but the once-shy Hyuga always insisted on doing them anyway. To quote Shikamaru again, it was troublesome.

The wishful thinking did nothing to diminish that stupid pile of paperwork at all, so Naruto straightened from his slouch, grabbed a brush, dipped it in some black ink and concentrated himself on the task in front of him. The blond Hokage read the first lines of the paper placed in front of him and felt his new found determination going up in smoke. It was the _tenth_ time this week that Shimada Kyoichi put in a complaint about his neighbor's cat. The _tenth_! Naruto scrapped the paper and threw it in the bin a few meters away._ My reflexes are still good_, he noted with appreciation when the paper landed perfectly in the trashcan. His skills hadn't deteriorated at all despite the long hours sitting in his office and watching the clock slowly tick time away instead of doing boring paperwork. He couldn't even use the Bunshin to do the paperwork because, even though the shadow clones were supposedly docile and did everything he asked, they still sensed that doing paperwork was a fate far worse than dispelling in macabre ways and "killed" themselves before even starting. So the Hero of Konoha was stuck doing paperwork duty.

Seeing that his determination gauge was completely empty, Naruto quickly went back to his musings about the past. His had not been all sunshine and rainbows, what with the bullying and the hate he unjustly received because of his unusual prisoner. It had been very painful, he recalled, seeing the coldness in the villagers' eyes and hearing the insults they whispered behind his back. Of course, the hurt eased when he became friends with Iruka. That man, even though he was a sensei (Bleh!), had been his closest and to tell the truth, only friend for many years. The blond adult idly wondered what would have happened had Iruka been like Mizuki, the man who tried to kill him on his graduation day.

He guessed he might have turned out a bit like Gaara, who had been driven by loneliness and Shukaku to homicidal insanity. Only it would have been worse because his Biju was the strongest of all the Tailed Beasts, giving him near invincibility. Killing people, hearing them scream and spilling their blood would've been sickeningly good fun for him and the Kyuubi inside his mindscape. The young Hokage shuddered at the mental images his mind conjured up. The pictures were nauseating and horrific, even to him, who'd took part in a gruesome war.

Had Iruka been Mizuki-like, he wouldn't be Hokage, he wouldn't be married to Hinata or have two wonderful babies with her. He wouldn't be revered, adored and loved by all the Villagers and Shinobis. The Village would've hated him, the Sandaime would've regretfully declared him unstable, ROOT would've taken him in and destroyed any hint of humanity that he still had. He would've become the perfect killing machine: pitiless, cold, professional and efficient. He probably would not have been able to save Konoha or the Elemental Nations at all and Madara would have won, marking the end of freedom. So, Naruto reckoned, the world had a lot to thank the Academy teacher for.

Later that day, the revered Nanadaime Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto, called a meeting with the entire and new Village Elders Committee. Choji, Kiba, Hinata, Shikamaru, Neji, Shino, Sasuke, Konohamaru and Ino were all seated at a massive round table. They unanimously agreed to create a holiday on the 26 of May, in memory of their now deceased but still beloved teacher, the brave Iruka Umino. Later in the week, the Hokage passed a message to the Kazekage, who gave it to the Raikage, who sent it to the Mizukage who finally dispatched it to the Tsuchikage. All were more or less friends of the Hokage and all accepted the proposition that the message suggested.

The day became an International Holiday known as the Iruka Umino day.

Generations of young shinobi-in-training blessed Iruka Umino, whoever he was, with their utmost thanks for allowing them to relax and rest their sore muscles.

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><p><strong>Hehehe! Kami bless Iruka Umino. I do not own Naruto, just in case. Please review if you like, dislike or have advice to improve my fic. I think I have a lot of things to improve on. So, fire constructive criticism away!<strong>

**PS: Iruka was a friend to Naruto, even before the Mizuki Incident. We see him treating Naruto to ramen. Just saying.  
><strong>


	3. Sasuke

**Phew! This was by far the most difficult thing I've written. I want to thank my wonderful beta, SasuSakufan4ever, for giving me amazing advice. You were perfect~!**

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><p><em>So cold,<em> Uchiha Sasuke thought. _So dark. I feel like I'm floating. How did I get here?_

Suddenly, he remembered.

_I died. By the Dobe's hand. _

He chuckled humorlessly. The boy he'd considered beneath him for so many years had killed him.

_It's freezing. I can't see anything, even though my eyes are open. Why am I here?_

Maybe the dark and the cold were the punishments he received for his crimes. Yes, it was surely that. He himself had been a bitter, pitiless person and his path had always been shrouded in darkness. That same darkness had led him into killing and tortturing thousands before finally being relieved by the light incarnate; Naruto. So it was only fair, and ironic, too.

_It was a beautiful battle,_ the raven-haired teen recalled. _Fitting for the Last Uchiha. I went down fighting, like the Young me would have liked._

_But what would the Young me think of all the innocent Konoha civilians I have massacred during the war? _

_What would he think of the Akatsuki's activities?_

_And of Madara? _

_I'm sure he would be ashamed, angry and disgusted. After all, the Young me strived to kill Itachi, the one who he pictured as a coldblooded murderer. He didn't strive to kill innocent people or to help a madman to conquer the world._

Being killed had changed Uchiha Sasuke in many ways. He was no longer biased by his ego or by his hate and looked at the past events with clear, unclouded eyes.

Memories of the glorious battle flitted in the Avenger's mind.

_Naruto had become stronger than ever before, even stronger than me with my Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. He had worked in unison with Kyuubi, gaining control of the Fox's unlimited chakra and had destroyed my Susanoo after hours of high-level fighting. And he won; after all this time, he proved that he was better than me. That he always had been._

When Sasuke Uchiha had died, he had expected to meet Itachi and was surprised by the… well, _nothingness. _It went on as far as he could see and when he yelled, the sound didn't bounce back to him on some nearby invisible wall, indicating that the place where he floated was _big. _Maybe infinite, but he couldn't know.

The nothingness had been annoying and boring at first but it was how time seemed to flow so slowly that grated on his nerves the most.

And, so to pass the time, he decided to imagine how his life would've been had Itachi not been a genius. He thought about it for quite some time and reckoned that if his older brother had been a normal ninja, he would've been dead. The Third had to kill the Uchiha clan; otherwise there would have been a bloody civil war between the Uchiha and the rest of Konoha. Itachi had spared him because he couldn't kill his precious little brother: a stranger would have no such scruples. A stranger would have killed him, without hesitation, as he had killed other countless innocent Uchihas on the off chance that they might learn the truth. He owed his life to Itachi, who had bore the grisly reputation of a murderer in order to protect an innocent child.

The normally cold and pitiless Uchiha felt his eyes water at the fond memories of his beloved elder brother. He prayed fervently that one day, Itachi would forgive him for the atrocious crimes he had committed in his name. Sasuke sobbed and cried for all the times he'd forced himself to be strong. For all the times he'd been an idiot.

After he had cried for what seemed hours, a ray of light pierced the shroud of darkness. Sasuke blinked, his eyes struggling to adjust to the brusque change of lighting. Where there was nothing before now stood a closed gate from which the light came. The gateway opened with a screech and more light poured from it into the shadowy world where he was. With the light came a blast of warmth that invigorated Sasuke so that he now longer felt like a block of ice.

The Uchiha was barely aware that he had stood up from his horizontal floating position to walk towards the gate and its welcoming warmth, like his instincts told him to. A lone figure was waiting for him on the step, arms wide as if to receive a hug. With a jolt, he recognized Itachi. All restraints forgotten, he ran towards his brother and hugged him with all his might. Itachi wrapped his arms tightly around his younger brother.

"Come with me, foolish little brother," the much-missed voice said warmly.

Sasuke's frame was wracked with quiet sobs. He tried to say 'yes' but all he could utter for now was a shaky croak. He settled for a shaky nod and took his brother's hand.

Itachi's smile widened as he led his little brother inside the light.

Had Sasuke been a spectator of this scene, he would've seen that his body no longer looked eighteen years old. Where before stood the muscular and tattered form of a late teenager, now, gripping his older brother's hand tightly, stands an innocent little child with no more than eight years old. Pain, despair, death and darkness were now strangers to the virgin mind of the young Uchiha. Light and happiness had replaced them for eternity.

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><p><strong>Voila! Tell me what you think in a review, please!<strong> **Thank you very much.**


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